“I love this hospital! It’s my whole life. It’s been wife, mother, child to me. I’ve given it everything, and nothing’s going to wreck it. Nothing!” So says the beleaguered but determined hospital administrator, as he struggles to keep things going despite a host of problems and crises.

In particular: Britannia Hospital’s fully unionized staff is highly political and uncooperative, striking at a moment’s notice; one of the hospital’s surgeons is a megalomaniac, entirely indifferent to ordinary human life and secretly assembling his own “Frankenstein” from patients’ body parts; there is an angry mob of socialist revolutionaries literally at the gates demanding an end to the hospital’s practice of accepting “private patients” (patients who pay extra for superior conditions); and royalty is arriving amidst all this to participate in the five hundredth anniversary of the hospital’s founding! It all comes to a head with hilarious results.

A metaphor for what ailed pre-Thatcher Britain, this film lampoons that 1970s high watermark of British socialism, a time characterized by rampant strikes, failing basic services, and a general sense that nothing was working. It focuses in particular on the counterproductive effects of excessively strong unions, which management must constantly coax and bribe to get anything done, and also mocks the way in which politicization of decisions divides people. The ending of the film seems to be an appeal to rise above that kind of thing, in the name of the human potential for greatness.

Britannia Hospital is a wonderfully well-written and tightly crafted comedy. Not a moment is wasted. The entire film is literally jammed with memorable characters played with great finesse. One minor caveat: there are a few short but somewhat gory hospital scenes, so it might not be suitable for very young or squeamish audiences.

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In 2018, ten new libertarian films (six narrative films and four documentaries) were identified and are listed below. It’s noteworthy that many of these films were made on a shoestring budget and clawed their way up through sheer merit -- the declining cost of film technology combined with online distribution … Continue Reading

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About Miss Liberty

This site is a collection of films and documentaries of particular interest to libertarians (and those interested in libertarianism). It began as a book, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film: Movies for the Libertarian Millennium, where many of the recommended films were first reviewed. The current collection has grown to now more than double the number in that original list, and it’s growing still.